Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 23, 1995 TAG: 9504220017
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: G-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: REVIEWED BY LUCY LEE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
If you're depressed about the problem of teen-age pregnancy in the Roanoke Valley, read this book. The Lady Hurricanes, members of a (real-life) high school basketball team in Amherst, Mass., don't even think about sex. They are focused on basketball, period.
Such a presentation of teen-age girls' lives is hardly realistic, but it is an upper. And perhaps there's something to be learned from reading it.
Listen to junior varsity player, Rita Powell, on Madonna: "She never did anything except be sexy. I resent the message that if you are sexy, you are powerful."
In comparing herself to Madonna, Rita says she treats her body "300 degrees different. I lift weights not so I'll look strong to other people, but so I'll be strong. I don't drink, I don't smoke. I ask enough of my body without asking it to deal with random substances."
And co-captain Jen Pariseau hates the way female athletes are described in the media: "First, there was so little; second, what there was tended to include adjectives like ```lithe' and 'winsome' and 'gorgeous.'"
Jen prefers the word "strong."
We're talking self-respect here - a rare commodity for many teen-agers, female or male.
These young women also know about respect for others.
The day of the championship game, the team decided to watch "A League of Their Own," in order to pump themselves up. The coach was impressed that they seemed more connected to Marla, the ugly duckling in the movie, than to the stars. Although Marla had no social graces, was heartbreakingly unattractive and awkward, she "had the strongest arm and the surest pace." The girls respected her - they knew she had what it took.
Naturally, girls as "together" as the Lady Hurricanes made fantastic role models, and the younger set adored them. Some of the most touching parts of the story are about the relationships between the stars of the team and their younger fans.
Interestingly, most of the players were from homes in which the original parents had divorced - "quiet kids, no dad in the picture."
Coach Ron Moyer was a good parent figure for these girls. He believed that coaching girls was an exercise in confidence-building and should consist of constructive techniques only. He knew that such tactics as yelling, strutting, getting on their cases, wouldn't work.
After the final game, in which the Lady Hurricanes won the state championship, Moyer couldn't get them to come out of the locker room. When he finally went in, he was met by a teary-eyed group and such phrases as "Last ... final ... never again."
He explained that they were wrong to think basketball was over. There would be much more in their lives. The girls didn't understand right off that he was using basketball as a metaphor for what they thought was over - personal challenges, growth, achievement, winning, friendships, a sense of family.
The bottom line about this book is that it's more interesting to talk about than to read.
There's a lot of welcome philosophy about female behavior and the advantages of sports for girls. But everything about the presentation - the spurts of feminism, the development of the main characters, the introduction of tangential characters, the description of the games, the analogy of the team with the town - is shallow. The book grew out of a piece originally published in the "New York Times Magazine." The problem is that it didn't grow enough.
Nevertheless, there's merit in this book, especially for teen-age girls. Those whose futures don't hold much promise, in particular, need to know there are other routes to selfhood and adulthood than motherhood.
Lucy Lee is a Roanoke free-lance writer.
by CNB